Stuck on daughter's maths homework

[fatblokish]

For the first time ever, and rather embarrassingly, I am stuck on a maths question posed to my 13 year old daughter.

Can you please help?

Q> what is the value of (27/8)^(-1/3)

I see that 27 = 3^3 and that 8= 2^3, but cannot see how this helps.

Ta

ps, calculators NOT ALLOWED !

 

[biggs682]

afraid not

 

[PK99]

For the first time ever, and rather embarrassingly, I am stuck on a maths question posed to my 13 year old daughter.

Can you please help?

Q> what is the value of (27/8)^(-1/3)

I see that 27 = 3^3 and that 8= 2^3, but cannot see how this helps.

Ta

ps, calculators NOT ALLOWED !

Hint: X^(-1/3) means (1 / cube root of X)
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27/8 = 3*3*3/2*2*2

cube root = 3/2

1/cube root = 2/3

 

[Peteaud]

to me the answer = 1.125,or 1 1/8 in old money

but i am probably wrong

 

[Yellow Fang]

Is it 2/3?

 

[fatblokish]

Thank you all; it all seems so clear now. However, I can only award you silver, and not gold, stars as some of your working out wasn't shown.

Ta.

 

[fatblokish]

Next week...Heaviside unit step function...

 

[Archie_tect]

I can't even find the symbol for the arrow pointing up let alone tell you what it meant and the [-1/3] needs to be in superscript unless that's what the upward arrow is supposed to mean....
so the teacher needs to explain things better!

Next!

 

[vernon]

I can't even find the symbol for the arrow pointing up let alone tell you what it meant and the [-1/3] needs to be in superscript unless that's what the upward arrow is supposed to mean....
so the teacher needs to explain things better!

Next!

Archie_tect - you need to brush up on using standard keyboard symbols to represent indices.

 

[Yellow Fang]

Thank you all; it all seems so clear now. However, I can only award you silver, and not gold, stars as some of your working out wasn't shown.

Ta.

Don't need workings. You can do it in your head.

 

[swee'pea99]

Me & my daughters' maths homework parted company when they were about 11...

 

[Brains]

What if find interesting and potentially worrying is I don't even understand the question, forget about the answers!
(and I design computer software for a living).

It appears that Mathematical Illiteracy is something that the American Government is aware is a major problem (and may have paid a large part in the current debt crisis) however Europe still has to wake up to the issue, if it is an issue of course, maybe since the invention of the cheap pocket calculator it no longer matters. .